


Popsicle Stains

by sarken



Category: Third Watch
Genre: F/M, Juvenilia, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-19
Updated: 2003-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:57:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/pseuds/sarken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith thinks about ice cream and her family on a hot and rainy summer's day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Popsicle Stains

She always liked summer, watching from the kitchen window as Emily and Charlie ran downstairs to buy ice cream when the ice cream truck arrived. It always came too close to dinner, but she had never had the opportunity as a child and she couldn't deprive them of the chance, even if she was spoiling them as Fred claimed. He would tell her she was wasting money and she would have to bite her tongue to keep from saying he, too, wasted it, but on too many beers and too many rounds for the house.

Sometimes, they'd surprise her and Charlie would return first, grinning broadly with his mouth stained from a grape Popsicle, and hold the door open for Emily, who would be carrying a vanilla cone with multicolour sprinkles (hers) and a pistachio cone (Faith's). They'd sit on the couch and watch Stick Stickley on Nickelodeon and Faith would pretend not to care that Fred would yell when he found colourful ice cream and Popsicle splatters on their ugly, second-hand sofa.

That had been years ago, though, when Faith had been working graveyard shifts and hadn't minded eating pistachio ice cream for breakfast and supplementing Nick in the Afternoon for Today. Now the kids lived with Fred and his spotless furniture on the other side of town while Faith lived in the same apartment she'd grown up in, but with slipcovers hiding the ice cream stained couch.

Sighing, she pulled herself away from the kitchen window where she had been listening to rain (drops, not sheets) go 'plink, plink, plink' against the glass. She went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water that read Evian in red writing across a pink and blue label. Maybe it would make up for the pistachio ice cream she wasn't having from the ice cream truck whose route no longer led it past her apartment building. Of course, the bottle, having been refilled countless times, actually contained tap water and would in no way make up for the absence of ice cream or the absence of her kids. To think so would only be naive.

She poured the clear (but not crystal clear and sparkling, like it would have been if the bottle was new) water into an obscenely yellow plastic glass, refilled the container with tap water, and put it back into the fridge before opening the freezer and taking three non-cube-shaped ice cubes from the door. The ice plunked and plopped and finally cracked after she dropped it into the glass.

The heavy, green apartment door creaked and squeaked and the floorboards protested loudly as keys jingled and sandal clad feet stomped across the floor. "It's got to be ten degrees hotter in here than outside," Bosco said, and she could picture him shaking his head as he made his dripping wet self comfortable on her sofa.

She laughed, not knowing why, but knowing that it felt good to laugh. She took a sip of her water and, glass in hand, walked into the living room where Bosco wasn't sitting, but was instead adjusting the air conditioner. She took in his soaked clothing which showed off his muscles and she said to herself, "Speaking of hot..."

He turned back, that boyish grin that had won over so many unsuspecting women plastered on his face. The cold air from the air conditioner blew on his back, and combined with the rainwater running from his head all the way down to his feet, almost made his teeth chatter. "Come on, let's go outside," he said, forgetting about how he had longed to come into an apartment where he could cool off only a few moments earlier.

"It's raining," she said, placing her drink on the coffee table. She didn't mind; it was summer and rain was just as good as sun.

"We'll dance in it." He shook his head, not believing the words he'd just uttered. "You've changed me."

No further discussion occurred and soon they were outside, laughing as they raced from the building's exit to the street corner just to enjoy the feel of the rain and the sound of each other's laughter. When she heard the sound of an ice cream truck somewhere in the distance, she grabbed Bosco's hand and dragged him back to the apartment, recalling the Popsicle stains on the couch. Perhaps it was time for some new stains.


End file.
